Back to Its Natural State

I had my hair blown out today, for fun and because I had the time after my semiannual haircut. It’s been two years or so since I’ve seen it straight. The children were alarmed. “You look like a mom,” I thought Vivi said, but she explained, “No, you look like your mom.” (A not unhappy fate growing closer every day.)

The lovely apprentice stylist who did the blowout asked if I got them often. No, no, but I used to dry my hair straight, then put it on hot rollers, to achieve a look very similar to my natural curls. And when I dyed my hair in my twenties, I was always describing a color that we could never quite match—until I stopped dyeing it and realized it’d been there all along.

What lengths we go to working to get back to our natural state. In yoga, we call the state moksha, freedom, liberation. Which of your rituals and habits are layered one over the other trying to take you back to your self? What if you removed them and just rested in that place to begin with?